By Ann Roosevelt
NATO is examining ways to link its current missile defense efforts to a European-based U.S. missile defense from concerns that the proliferation of ballistic missiles poses an increasing threat to alliance forces, territory and populations, leaders said at a summit in Bucharest, Romania.
In the April 3 Bucharest Summit Declaration, NATO heads of state and government said they “recognize the substantial contribution to the protection of Allies from long range ballistic missiles to be provided by the planned deployment of European-based United States missile defense assets. We are exploring ways to link this capability with current NATO missile defense efforts as a way to ensure that it would be an integral part of any future NATO wide missile defense architecture.”
Additionally, the statement said, “Bearing in mind the principle of the indivisibility of Allied security as well as NATO solidarity, we task the Council in Permanent Session to develop options for a comprehensive missile defense architecture to extend coverage to all Allied territory and populations not otherwise covered by the United States system for review at our 2009 Summit, to inform any future political decision.”
NATO has been moving forward on missile defense. In February the alliance inaugurated a special testing facility in The Hague, Netherlands. The integration test bed was nine months ahead of schedule (Defense Daily, Feb. 14). NATO contracted with SAIC [SAI] in 2006 for the test bed for the alliance’s future Active Layered Theatre Missile Defence (ALTBMD) capability (Defense Daily, Nov. 29, 2006).
Ahead of the summit, President Bush said he was confident NATO would endorse a missile defense system for Europe. Bush meets his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin at the Bucharest Summit and then alone over the weekend at a Russian resort. Missile defense is a likely agenda topic.
“We also commend the work already underway to strengthen NATO Russia missile defence cooperation,” the declaration said. “We are committed to maximum transparency and reciprocal confidence building measures to allay any concerns.”
NATO also encouraged Russia to “take advantage” of missile defense cooperation proposals, and said the alliance is ready to explore linking United States, NATO and Russian missile defense systems at an “appropriate” time.
Allies have reduced nuclear arsenals from Cold War levels, the statement said. For example, “France has reduced the types of its nuclear systems to two, the number of its nuclear delivery vehicles by over half, and has announced it will reduce the number of its nuclear warheads to fewer than 300, with no other weapons beside those in its operational stockpile. The United Kingdom has reduced to one nuclear system, and has reduced the explosive power of its nuclear stockpile by 75 percent, and its number of operationally available nuclear warheads to fewer than 160. The United States has reduced its nuclear weapon stockpile to less than 25 percent of its size at the height of the Cold War, and decreased tactical nuclear weapons assigned to NATO by nearly 90 percent. “
NATO remains “deeply concerned” about the proliferation risks of the Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs, and calls for full compliance with United Nations resolutions in that regard. The alliance has similar concerns over proliferation activities of North Korea.
The alliance summit statement reaffirmed support for existing multilateral non-proliferation agreements, calling for universal adherence with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Safeguard Agreement and full compliance with related United Nations resolutions.